Anna Deavere Smith Quotes
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I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
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I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.
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I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators 'the haute couture of language.'
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Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.
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My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.
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Because of the generation in which I came into the world, there were expectations. Of course there were expectations. It was something having to do with being a respectable Negro woman who would make the people in Baltimore proud.
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Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.
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I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.
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Over time, my students have gotten richer and more educated.
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You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.
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Artists are the people that no matter what, pick up the pen, pick up a paintbrush. They take the time to translate what is happening to create something that resonates deeply with the rest of the people that are caught in the middle of their own reality.
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Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.
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I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.
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Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.
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Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.
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I think a lot of L.A. is something like USC - this incredible white culture living in the midst of color, and no obvious reaction to it at all. I mean, they have guards at the gate at USC - guards at the gate of a major university! And the guards chase young black boys away - I've seen it, chasing 8-year-old boys.
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I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.
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If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
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I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.
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We would like doctors to listen, but the fact is, we better be ready to be able to talk to them. You're going to have to be an active participant in that conversation, so I'd say the American people are going to need ways of stepping up to the conversation.
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My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.
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I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
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Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
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I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.